I'm afraid that all that would happen is that the state would foist the
blame right back on the districts - just like they have done with their
counter suit against the districts in response to the ACLU suit re: the
state's responsibility to provide "basic education" You see, it's the
districts' fault that we decided to spend the little bits of money the state
awarded us on teachers' salaries and classrooms supplies rather than
maintenance. We had that choice at the district level, remember? But of
course, we couldn't even get a state bond on the ballot for years because
the legislature wouldn't vote for one because the builders wanted to tie
getting rid of the developer's fees in exchange for supporting the bond so
even if we could qualify for modernization money or new school building
money there was no money until it got SO bad that everyone had to recognize
that something had to be done and on and on and on. But I still think it's
a great idea!

The governor wants to hold students and teachers accountable for learning.

Shouldn't he and the legislature be accountable for providing books,
materials and facilities? What if every school were ranked on a statewide
index--from the top decile to the bottom--on a single number representing
the quality of the school facilities? Wouldn't the state government be
responsible for improving the scores of the bottom fifty percent?

Would it be called the "Opportunity to Learn Index"? Or the "Academic
Prerequisites Index" (API)? We could have a STAR (STate-provided Academic
Resources) program. Or maybe Students, Teachers And Resources as an
equation for learning.

George Sheridan
Northside School
Cool, California 95614

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